The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has released a comprehensive look at the United States’ drone program from 2009 to the present. Sketching its missteps and apparent successes, the United Kingdom-based nonprofit relates the story of the Barack Obama administration’s relationship with drones and brings clarity to an otherwise opaque issue.

Drone strikes began after 9/11, after the passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF.) This law enables the president to “take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the (U.S.).”

Since the act’s passage, both the George W. Bush and the Obama administrations have launched hundreds of attacks on foreign soil.

By their count, over 390 covert drone strikes have killed more than 2,400 people thus far since Obama took office. Targeting Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Both civilians and militants have been killed.

Barack Obama first made use of drones just three days after the start of his presidency. While initial reports deemed it a success, information gathered later indicated that at least nine civilians were killed in the strike while the one 14-year-old survivor was blinded.

Instead of hitting a Taliban hideout, as intended, the drone struck a family household, killing a tribal elder and members of his family.

Although Obama was reportedly dismayed by the news, he has continued using drone strikes in much greater excess than his predecessor, although with greater rates of accuracy.

Under Obama, drone strikes have killed “six times as many people” than under Bush, but the casualties per strike has dropped from eight to six. Similarly, the civilian deaths have decreased as well, from three casualties per strike for Bush and only 1.43 casualties for Obama.

Some argue that drones help more than hinder anti-terrorism campaigns. As one Air Force officer expressed in the New York Times, “using them to go after terrorists not only was ethically permissible but also might be ethically obligatory, because of their advantages in identifying targets and striking with precision.”

Beyond their perceived benefits, mistaken drone strikes still rattle those who consider them immoral. In 2006, CIA drones killed at least 68 children located in a madrassa, or religious school.

Last month, drones attacked a convoy escorting a bride to her wedding. The U.S. has yet to comment on an attack that killed more than 15 civilians.

In September 2013, a law professor’s study found strikes harm global security and encourage other states and terrorist organizations to likewise arm themselves with unmanned weapons. As interest and concern over drones grow and the debate over their moral and unethical merits rage, the U.S. will carefully need to consider the cost of its continued employment.

In December 2013, the United States drone campaign in Yemen came under intense scrutiny when a drone meant for an al-Qaeda operative accidentally hit a wedding party, killing 15 civilians. In the month since that strike, there have been three more U.S. drone strikes in Yemen. In this most recent strike, another civilian was accidentally killed while walking through a village.

After the initial strike, the U.S. launched an internal investigation into how this mistake happened. The strike came a few months after U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to decrease the number of drone strikes and hold the program accountable to minimize the loss of civilian life. The U.S. has also faced increasing international criticism over its drone campaigns in countries across the Middle East.

Yemen’s Parliament issued a statement calling for an end to U.S. drone strikes within Yemen borders. The vote was nearly unanimous and issued a ‘strong warning’ to the U.S. Government and Yemen President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Yemeni government official was quoted saying, “The Yemeni public is angered by the drone strikes…the people’s representatives reflected on the tone of the streets.” Not only is the public outspoken against drone strikes, human rights groups on the ground have issued similar statements denouncing the action taken by the U.S.

Yemen and the US carry out some of these attacks as a joint program because the Yemeni military does not have the capability to reach some remote areas. The program is dedicated to combatting al-Qaeda, which has a strong presence in rural parts of the country.

It is estimated over 50 civilians have been killed by drone strikes in Yemen. Human Rights Watch in Yemen has said the drone strikes may be backfiring with the Yemeni public, especially in rural areas that see the most activity. They even go as far as to say drone strikes have help al-Qaeda turn formerly peaceful tribes who have been affected directly. With public opinion increasingly turning against the Yemen government working with the US drone campaign, the politically unstable country will continue to see major problems.

The United States government is launching an internal investigation into a December 12 drone strike in Yemen. The drone strike was meant for an al-Qaeda militant, but ended up hitting a wedding party, killing 12 civilians and leaving more injured. A local journalist soon after took images of the strike and turned them over to a human rights organization working in Yemen called Reprieve. That group then turned it over to NBC News, the resulting actions allowed many to say that the U.S. ‘turned a wedding into a funeral.’

The U.S. released a statement acknowledging the attack while also stating that officials are now reviewing what happened. This is one of the few times the U.S. government has mentioned or confirmed that a drone strike is being questioned. A U.S. official, after declining to give any sort of identification, stated that, “Given the claims of civilian causalities, we are reviewing it.”

Some are calling this a ‘wake up call’ that highlights the problems with the U.S. drone campaign. There are even reports that the target of the strike Shawqui Ali Ahmed al Badani, a mid-level militant, ended up escaping the attack. Others on the ground in Yemen said that Badani wasn’t even present at the time. Baraa Shiban, a human rights activist who was in the area at the time, said that he had not heard any reports that Badani was in the area. He explained that, “Badani was from a different region so he would have been a stranger in the region.” He, furthermore, added that he believes that the US acted on incorrect intelligence.

This drone strike has, moreover, garnered a strong reaction against the U.S. within Yemen. To illustrate this, the Yemen parliament passed a resolution that called for an end for all drone strikes in Yemen shortly after the wedding day drone strike. Official numbers provided by the U.S. government claim that they have carried out 59-69 drone strikes in Yemen, resulting in between 287-423 deaths, both civilian and militant. Though more strikes are suspected to have been carried out by the U.S., they have not been officially confirmed.

For the successful transition of governance in an already impoverished state to take hold, basic security and stability through shared political will and access to participation must occur. For the countries swept up in the Arab Spring will each face multiple barriers to progress and implementation of new democratic forms of government. Each country has a uniquely manifested identity struggling to emerge in the aftermath of the waves of reform that have radically changed the Arab world.

The Republic of Yemen is still teetering in this revolution, and earlier this month, United Nations agencies appealed for humanitarian aid in Geneva. They reported that more than half of Yemen’s population of more than 25 million is in need of some form of assistance.

Yemenis already face difficulties in survival and achieving basic security as Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is one of the least developed nations and is one of the most dry regions in the world. It ranks 140 out of 182 countries on the U.N. Development Programme Human Development Index (2009.) Nearly 42 percent of the population is poor and one in five is malnourished.

It has been two years since Yemen’s long-ruling leader Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down in response to the Arab Spring protests. The transition has not been harmonious and has now all but stuttered to a standstill. Threats and violence have spread and become more frequent and there have been increased attacks by Al-Qaeda across the country recently. The election of an interim president was supposed to have initiated that drafting of a new constitution ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls in early 2014.

However, like other states struggling in this Arab Spring, leaders in the transition have been unable to agree on a way ahead forward and living conditions have deteriorated further as security has devolved under extremist attacks. The situation has been so unstable that the U.N. Security Council has threatened sanctions against former regime figures and “political opportunists” impeding the process.

For Yemen’s poor and needy, this means further delays in progress and assistance will be expected. This coupled with a growing population needing more services and more access to participation will only increase the urgency in this humanitarian crisis.

About two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas with the majority of families dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture is a vital economic sector, and it provides employment in a country with an unemployment rate of 37 percent. According to a recent UNICEF report, Yemen has the world’s fourth-fastest growing population. This means the country’s poor availability of natural resources leaves it unable to meet the needs of a population that is increasing by more than 3.5 percent annually.

People in rural areas are not only poor, but they are impoverished because they do not have adequate access to basic needs such as land, safe water, health care and education. Without an effective government to provide aid and establish programs for development, what progress made is risked and more lives stand to be threatened or made vulnerable by security failures and governmental incompetence.

Talks have recently stalled and the nation faces a transition period of two more years. Unless the leaders of this new government can quickly find a way to move forward and agree upon the next steps for the nation, Yemen risks backsliding into further violence and political deterioration with more lives lost.

The Yemeni government has just taken the first steps to what could be the end of child marriage in Yemen.

Currently, there are not any laws in place dictating the minimum age for marriage. This has led to children being married off at young ages. In a move that seems promising for activists opposing child marriage across the region, the Human Rights Ministry of Yemen (HRM) effectively stopped a 12 year old girl from being forced to marry.

Unlike this fortunate young girl, many Yemeni girls are married off at a young age to much older men. In such cases, usually forced by their families into marriages, upon marriage many of these young women are exposed to suffering domestic violence and abuse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report that indicated 14% of Yemeni girls are married before they are 15 years old. 52% will be married before they are 18. And, in addition to such findings, many problems have be identified to associate with child marriage — most notably, are concerns detrimental to their psychological and physical well-being.

Hiba, a 12 year old from Taiz, a city in southern Yemen, was due to be married at the beginning of November. An official from the HRM reported that they aided Hiba in avoiding marriage by working with the local authorities. The authorities said if the marriage were to go through, she would be granted an immediate divorce. Although this case had a happy ending, without the government passing a legislation to outlaw child marriage, girls all over the country are still at risk.

Recently, the Human Rights Ministry of Yemen has put the issue of child marriage at the top of their to-do list.

A bill is expected to be introduced that will hopefully establish a minimum age requirement for marriage, making it a law that no one under 17 can be married. A similar law was proposed four years ago and received support from human rights and women’s groups, but was eventually blocked by traditional religious leaders. The new bill is expected to be a new draft of the older bill — there is hope that it may receive wider support this time around.

“We are hungry and we need jobs,” says a Yemenis woman, who faces a recording camera while standing on the side of a dirt road. Her clothes are stained by sand and her eyes are bloodshot, but she responds with firm assurance to questions in a recent YouTube video composed by activists from Support Yemen, who aimed at facilitating dialogue in the capital city of Sana. Topics ranged from the ongoing political instabilities that the region faces to other matters, such as closing the gap between civilians, military, and tribal forces. These are not the only factors hindering Yemen’s economic and social progression, as high food prices, endemic poverty, diminishing resources and influxes of refugees and migrants are also damaging the region from within.

In hopes of relieving some of the hunger the Yemenis people are facing, much needed food support will be streamlined into the region thanks to recent contributions by the Government of India and the World Food Programme (WFP.) After a Comprehensive Food Security Survey was conducted in Yemen last year, WFP found 22 percent of the population was living under severely insecure food standards. This has led the WFP to set a new goal at providing five million people in 16 governorates with food assistance and programs to strengthen their community’s resilience.

It has also been announced that the WFP will be appropriating a budget of $495 million for programs and activities in Yemen, starting in 2014 and ending in 2016. WFP’s continued effort in Yemen has already provided assistance to 5 million children, pregnant women, and internally displaced persons (IDPs.) In a place where nearly half of children younger than five years old are malnourished and stunted, there is still much more that can be done.

Doing their part in combating hunger in the area is the Government of India, who recently contributed $1.8 million in an effort that will aid almost 121,300 people most in need of assistance over the next six months. Those funds were used to purchase approximately 2,600 metric tons of wheat, which will provide emergency food assistance for 3.5 million people, 600,000 IDPs, and other nutritional support for 405,000 children under the age of five. Mohammed Saeed Al-Sa’adi, a representative for the Government of Yemen, had this to say about the donation: “We are grateful to the government and people of India for providing this timely donation and we highly appreciate the cooperation between WFP and India in delivering assistance to those in need.”

Appropriated funds going towards Yemen will provide relief over the next few years, but it will only prove temporary if sustainability and community resilience aren’t increased in the area. With a growing deficit of $3.2 billion and poverty rates on the rise since 2011, it is important to realize the consequences which many men, women, and children will face after they have taken a toll. As donations come into the area from across the globe and programs are constantly being implemented into Yemen communities, it is hopefully a fruitful sign of things to come.

Ten years from now, Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a, could completely run out of water. If this happens, Sana’a will be the first capital city in the world to run dry. Currently, its nearly two million citizens do not have access to clean water on a daily, or, in some cases, even a weekly basis. In a country that is dealing with massive political unrest and severe poverty, the water shortage has, in some ways, taken a back seat to other pressing issues.

Approximately 25 million people live in Yemen, and it is estimated that 54 percent live in poverty. In addition to widespread poverty, Yemen is still recovering and putting its government back together in the wake of the Arab Spring. Political instability is still prevalent in the region with violence, revolts, and a strong presence of Al Qaeda militancy. Even with all of these issues, Yemen’s quickly depleted water sources should be its number one concern according to Naji Abu Hatim, a Yemeni expert at the World Bank. To put the water crisis into perspective, the water poverty line, according to the United Nations, is 1,000 cubic meters. Citizens in Yemen average 140 cubic meters.

With above ground freshwater sources quickly drying up, citizens have turned to tapping into underground resources. Fewer than half of the wells in Yemen regulated by the municipality are being used on a regular basis. Unregulated drilling and installing of wells has become commonplace, further lowering the water table in an attempt to access running water more often than a few times a month. Since water is only available in certain places, it has become common for people to try to fill as many containers as they can and walk the water back to their house.

The limited availability of water has led to tension over who should have access what little resources that are left. Some disputes have already led to violence in some regions where water is particularly scarce. Unless immediate action is taken to reverse the water crisis, it is likely that more violence will follow as access to water becomes more scarce.

While some action has been taken, many say it does not go far enough. Until there is massive public and government interest in the crisis, it is likely to remain a backseat issue. Currently, there are short term campaigns sponsored by the government. Tawfeek Al-Sharjabi, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Water and Environment, says these campaigns do not adequately address the problem, but the government does not have enough money to devote to long term solutions. Al-Sharjabi also says he believes the ministry cannot solve the water crisis on their own; instead it is an issue of collaboration between aid organizations and the government. “We believe that this is connected to political solutions,” Al-Sharjabi says.

As one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, Yemen is currently faced with some of the most extreme poverty issues in the world. There are several issues that are unique to Yemen that contribute to this magnitude of poverty, issues that are on track to only get worse unless direct action is taken to mitigate these circumstances. If basic problems, such as lack of access to water, are not properly addressed, other matters, such as sub-par literacy rates, will continue to plague the region and exacerbate poverty in Yemen.

Top 5 Facts about Poverty in Yemen

1. Yemen’s population stands at 25.4 million and approximately 54% of those people live in poverty. In other words, 54% of the population survives on fewer than 2 dollars per day.

2. Approximately 45% of the population is malnourished.

3. Life expectancy in Yemen is 64 years old, 14 years younger than the average life expectancy in the United States.

4. Major infectious diseases plaguing the country include Bacterial diarrhea, Typhoid fever, Dengue fever and Malaria, all of which are preventable, curable and in some cases largely unheard of anymore in the western world.

5. There is less than 1 physician for every 1,000 people in Yemen.

Major Causes Behind Poverty in Yemen Today

The dire water shortage: The use of the word ‘dire’ cannot be stressed enough. According to Maplecroft, a global risk analysis organization, Yemen is ranked as the seventh most water-stressed country on the planet. Even though there is a water shortage in Yemen, approximately 90% of the country’s water is put towards its largely ineffective agricultural practices. In Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a, tap water is only available once every four days for its 2 million people. Even worse, in Taiz, a major city in the south, tap water is only available every 20 days. It is estimated that in 10 years, Sana’a will literally run out of water for its citizens.

On the brink of famine: In mid-2012, several major humanitarian relief organizations issued a warning that 44% of the population’s food needs are not currently being adequately met. Five million of these malnourished Yemeni citizens require emergency aid and immediate action. The warning cited a surge in food and fuel prices and political instability as the cause behind the number of malnourished people doubling since 2009. Though there is food available in some cases, many Yemenis cannot afford to buy nourishment because they have been displaced from their homes due to conflict.

Lingering political instability: Like most of the Middle East, Yemen felt the effects of the Arab Spring in 2011. The initial uprising was centered on protesting high unemployment, economic conditions and government corruption, which included the then president’s plan to alter the constitution to allow the direct transfer of power to his son. Al-Qaeda also has a presence in the region, which further contributes to political instability. For these reasons and many others, the attempt to reach stability within the government and the region is an ongoing process. After significant fighting and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens, a new president was placed in power after running uncontested in an election. The new president is responsible for overseeing the drafting and implementation of a new constitution and further presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014.

The U.S. drone strikes against suspected terrorists are killing innocent civilians and should be regarded as violations of international law, say Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW). In separate reports, the organizations use eyewitness accounts of civilian causalities in Yemen and Pakistan to depict the tragic effects of drone strikes.

In Pakistan, Amnesty interviewed 60 families and eyewitnesses in the tribal region of North Waziristan, an area that has been heavily targeted by U.S. airstrikes. One eyewitness was the granddaughter of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed by a drone missile while gardening outside her home. The 8-year-old recounted the gruesome details: “[Her body] had been thrown quite a long distance away by the blast and it was in pieces. We collected as many different parts from the field and wrapped them in a cloth.”

HRW’s report studies six attacks that occurred in Yemen—one in 2009 and five in 2012-13. In these six attacks, 57 of the 82 people killed were innocent civilians with no links to terrorism. The innocents included a pregnant woman and several children. Letta Tayler, a senior researcher at HRW and the author of the report, said “Yemenis told us that these strikes make them fear the U.S. as much as they fear Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

The reports come as the Obama administration continues to downplay the civilian casualties resulting from drone strikes despite mounting evidence to the contrary. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on either of the reports, but did mention a speech the President delivered in May 2013 in which he defended drone attacks as an effective and legal means of killing terrorists.

Both Amnesty and HRW requested that the Obama administration explain its legal and operational rationale behind the drone program and urged more transparency. The administration rarely releases information about or acknowledges responsibility for drone attacks. In such an atmosphere of secrecy, it is difficult to ascertain how the administration selects targets and what efforts, if any, are used to minimize civilian casualties.

In addition to the Amnesty and HRW reports, U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson is also gathering preliminary data for a similar report that he will present to U.N. Human Rights Council. Emmerson said preliminary estimates are that more than 450 civilians have been killed in drone strikes in the past decade, but much works need to be done to confirm these numbers. Alluding to this challenge, Emmerson said, “The single greatest obstacle to an evaluation of the civilian impact of drone strikes is lack of transparency, which makes it extremely difficult to assess claims of precision targeting objectively.”

With a female literacy rate of 35 percent, a female to male income ratio of 30:100, and ranked 134 globally in education attainment for women, Yemen has been deemed the worst place to live as a woman. Women in Yemen have minimal rights to education, marriage, health care, and they are denied many basic human rights.

Life as a Woman in Yemen

Yemeni women are convinced to stay at home instead of getting an education or a job, and, therefore, they have little to no opportunity to gain their own freedom or economic status. Many women do not even have identification cards or voter status.

However, even if Yemeni women were not convinced to stay at home, their rights are so repressed by the males in their society that there is no way for them to gain their own freedom with their current country laws.

Forty-eight percent of women in Yemen are married by the time they are 18, and many of these marriages have brides as young as eight years old. Yemeni women are not allowed to marry without the permission of their male guardians. Within their marriages, Yemeni women do not have equal rights to custody, divorce or inheritance, and require a husband or father’s permission and to travel or get a passport.

Women in Yemen also suffer from poor health care. Since they are seen as unequal to their male counterparts women are denied many health care rights which results in many pregnancy complications. As of May 2008, one in 39 women in Yemen dies in childbirth.

However, the Human Rights Watch is campaigning to change these living conditions. The Human Rights Watch sent in a letter to the head of the Rights and Freedom Working Group in hopes of alerting them to the situation. The Rights and Freedom Working Group is responsible for all human rights, and the goal of the letter was to get them to recommend a list of changes to apply to the current Yemen constitution regarding women’s rights.

The Human Rights Watch believes that gender based discrimination and gender based violence need to be more recognized, and changes need to be made to the Constitution of Yemen to direct authorities to prevent these things. The organization is also campaigning to get all provisions that discriminate against women removed, as well as granting women equal rights within marriages, and setting a minimal age for marriage at age 18.

Plans for public awareness campaigns are also being planned by the Human Rights Watch, and their goal is to bring social awareness to the injustice in Yemen, as well as support for Yemeni women to become leaders. Yemen’s current share of women in Assembly of Representatives is less than 1 percent, making it one of the lowest globally.

Women deserve to have equal human rights globally, and the lack of rights in Yemen is a matter that needs to be recognized and solved.